Mission

Results Information

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Results Information

Charting Impact

What is your organization aiming to accomplish?

At CISA, we believe that we can double the amount of local food in the diets of Pioneer Valley residents, making local food a full 25% of what we eat over the next 20 years. Buying local helps sustain local, prosperous, and diverse farms, which we believe are essential for the economic health and quality of life in the region.

What are your strategies for making this happen?

CISA is working to increase both the supply of local food through direct support for local farmers and related businesses, as well as demand for local food through consumer education and outreach. We are also working to address systemic barriers from policy to infrastructure. There's lots of room for Pioneer Valley residents to eat more locally grown food. Almost all of us can do more to prioritize local food when making our food purchases, and we can also work together to make sure that locally grown food is easily accessible to residents throughout our region. Recent studies suggest that New England could provide over 50% of the food we eat with substantial dietary changes, such as eating less meat. Getting to 25% of our diet requires more minimal adjustments, such as substituting seasonal local vegetables for out-of-season imported ones.

What are your organization's capabilities for doing this?

CISA has over 20 years of experience working to support a more robust local agricultural economy through farm and business training, consumer education, and research and policy support. Our budget is over a million dollars and we anticipate a staff of 15 by the end of this year.

How will your organization know if you are making progress?

CISA tracks our progress through a number of tools including annual farmer surveys, periodic consumer market research, and changes in policy and business climate.

What have and haven't you accomplished so far?

CISA's years of consistent public education have created a created a climate that is very supportive of farms and related businesses. As one local farmer stated, “CISA has transformed the agricultural system in the Pioneer Valley and paved the way for so many farms to not only stay in business in the face of a global industrial food system, but to actually thrive. CISA's work has provided the foundation for our farm to diversify and expand in ways that strengthen the farm and the community. Fields that used to only grown potatoes for national distribution now produce everything from eggplant to sweet corn for local grocery stores, co-ops, farmers markets, local restaurants, and even a CSA. Our food truly feeds our community now, in large part because of CISA's work to establish a robust local food economy. "While we have made great progress, we see more room to expand the amount of local food available through restaurants, cafeterias and other institutional settings and we are now researching ways to support wholesale and distribution networks in our region. We also see an opportunity to increase the amount of local food available to low-income consumers and have launched SNAP and Save, which will match the first $10 a SNAP client spends at local farmers' markets. We and are partnering with the state of Massachusetts to implement the Healthy Incentives Pilot, which will provide a one-to-one rebate on all fruits and vegetables purchased through farm stands, Community Supported Agriculture programs, and farmers' markets. And finally, we think there is more opportunity for value-added food processing locally, which will expand the availability of local crops year round and we are working to identify opportunities for new entrepreneurs and funding for businesses.

GuideStar's Gold Seal of Transparency is earned by completing five questions around an
organization's strategies, progress, and results, known as Charting Impact.
Charting Impact encourages strategic thinking about how an organization intends to achieve its goals.
The end result is a report that lets nonprofits share concise, detailed information about plans
and progress with key stakeholders, including the public.
This data is provided directly by nonprofits to GuideStar via their Nonprofit Profile.

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This results data is current as of November 2017, when it was provided to us by GuideStar.
Results information published on this organization's rating page has no effect on its rating at this time.
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Financial Charts

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Programs (FYE 12/2016)

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Program names and associated costs are listed for the top programs as reported on the charity's most recently filed Form 990. The top programs displayed will include the largest three programs, or those programs covering at least 60% of the charity's total expenses, whichever comes first.